Complaint Review: Mister Sparky - Houston Texas

Im just going to state some facts here and let you all decide if you should use them or not. Im going to leave out specific details,
because they are vindictive and are not above harassing you if you complain about them. My grandparents contacted them because the light in our kitchen had gone out. Switching the breaker switch back would just cause it to reset again.

2 technicians were dispatched to their house. Mister Sparky states that its only $19.99 or sometimes even free for them to come out to evaluate the problem. We thought that this was a great deal. However, once my grandpa finished telling them what was wrong, one of the men immediately took out his binder. Thats when the upselling immediately began. They started off by
showing a certificate that one of them is a Master Electrician. Then they started selling them on a electrical maintenance membership program. They never even talked about the issue. My grandfather was told that in order to even look at the problem the cost would be $298.00. This only covers a diagnosis, but they said if its something simple they usually find it and fix it without additional cost. Well since its very hard to cook in the kitchen without any lights they agreed.

The technicians basically took apart the breaker and unscrewed a few of the outlets and light switches. They ran a cable from the
breaker box into the house and the lights came on! They identified the problem as very old wiring in the walls. They also recommended they change out the ground and a lot of other repairs. All for the price of about $2,000.00. They did a full right up with 3 options. Each about $50-100 apart from each other.

Since the cost was so high, there was no way my parents could afford this. Thats when the technician became very aggressive and told them what a great deal it was. Also that there was no need to shop around. My father finally got them to leave and thats when he called me to ask me if I knew of another company.

Now, Im not the most handy person, but I have watched my share of HGtv. I came over to their house and sure enough the breaker kept flipping on when ever you tried to reset the switch for the kitchen. I sawsomething like this on a show once and started unplugging all of the appliances in the kitchen. Sure enough, everything worked thereafter. The microwave oven
had apparently gone bad!!! All we had to do was unplug that single appliance.

I understand that everyone makes mistakes and perhaps they somehow overlooked it. If they were not trying to run up the repairs, what does that say about the quality of their work? Master electrician?

I hope the time I took to write this helps someone else. My parents are out $300 and they never even fixed their issue. Also, Mister Sparky will be more than happy to share their Better Business Bureau and online ratings with you to show how trust worthy they are. The fact is, the reason that not many complaints show up about them is this. They will refund your $300
if you complain ONLY if you sign a form that you wont leave any negative comments about them. Do your research on these guys before you use them.

---